Book 3
3.1
Frigidity of style arises from four causes: first, the use of compound words, as when LycophronA sophist, not the poet (author of the obscure Alexander or Cassandra), who was later than Aristotle. speaks of the many-faced sky of the mighty-topped earth, narrow-passaged shore; and Gorgias of a begging-poet flatterer, those who commit perjury and those who swear right solemnly.Lobeck conjectured κατεπιορκήσαντας, who commit out-and-out perjury. And as Alcidamas says, the soul full of anger and the face fire-colored, he thought that their zeal would be end-accomplishing, he made persuasive words end-accomplishing, and the azure-colored floor of the sea, for all these appear poetical because they are compound.
3.2
This is one cause of frigidity; another is the use of strange words; as Lycophron calls Xerxes a monster of a man, Sciron a human scourgeSciron and Sinnis were both robbers slain by Theseus, by Lycophron turns Sinnis into a γλῶττα, using it adjectivally = destructive; cf. σῖνος, harm; σίντης = σίννις.; and Alcidamas says plaything in poetry, the audaciousness of nature, whetted with unmitigated wrath of thought.
